Home Sweet Home
by KousukeAsazuki
Summary: Ichigo is back home from another adventure in Soul Society, but his rest is quickly interrupted by a challenge of another kind. \\Request fic-- Shinigami Strawberry; IchigoOC, het, lemon//


And another one bites the dust~ I'm just glad I get to cross another order off my list. Enjoy.

* * *

"Ahh, it's good to be back." Ichigo collapsed on his bed, giving a long sigh of relief. He had been in Soul Society for what felt like years, but was finally able to return home for a short reprieve. His eyes slowly opened as a frown touched down on his lips. _"Things will start unfolding soon. Will I be ready? Will _we _be ready?"_ It was very unlike the teen to doubt himself or his friends, but they were going up against something big; bigger than anything before. Without a doubt, though, he was sure he would protect the people he cared for.

"Day dreamin' already?" A voice from the direction of his recently-opened window struck through Ichigo's thoughts. Hazel eyes shot toward the girl leaning into his bedroom, a wide smirk playing across her lips.

"Chidori," he muttered. Tall, slim, and pale, the female vizard looked like she could fit into his classroom, though--like Shinji and the rest-- her appearance hardly spoke her age. Smooth, black hair tied up in a terra-twist ponytail that burst from the back of her head like a firework display and thin, crimson red eyes reminded Ichigo of some sort of cross between Gin Ichimaru and a lieutenant he had seen wondering around the Gotei-- Nanao-chan, he thought one of the captains had called her. After taking in the girl's presence after a moment, Ichigo linked his arms back behind his head and resumed his relaxed position. "What're you doin' here?"

"Hello to you, too," she scoffed, slipping in through the window to land agilely on the boy's stomach.

"Oof! Get off!" Ichigo squirmed for a few seconds, to no avail. Being a vizard, Chidori could easily overpower him when he was in his natural body. He sent a glare to her smirk and opted to sit up, forcing her to either topple over or move.

Scooting to a free space of the bed, Chidori sat cross-legged and studied Ichigo for a long while. "Things are getting tense, huh? Shinji won't shut up about it."

"Him again?" Ichigo frowned a bit, once more, but shrugged it off. "It's not happening right now, so I'm not worrying about it."

"Laid-back as always," she commented, almost glad that the simple Ichigo hadn't changed one bit.

"And you're no different, either."

"What?!"

A grin. "See?"

Chidori scoffed and moved to cross her arms, looking off to the side. "I don't even know why I came here."

Ichigo's brow furrowed slightly. "Not like I wanted you to come."

"What was that? The nerve! Here I am, going out of my way to see you, and all you can do is mock me!" Chidori moved to stand on the bed, turning to head out the same way she had come in. "Well, I'll just leave, then!"

Ichigo motioned toward the window with his hand. "Go ahead! I never invited you in, anyway!" He heard her make a disgusted sound before launching herself out the window, which he promptly stuck his head out of to watch her run off. "The nerve of some people..."

"Ya really got a way with girls, dontcha?" Kon. Great.

Ichigo swatted the stuffed lion off of his shoulder and sat back on his bed. "Like I care."

Squeaking as he hit the floor, the plush waved his arms angrily. "Well, you didn't have to chase her away!" He gave a small _hmph_, and crossed his arms. "No wonder you're single."

"Wha- get out of here!" Ichigo hurled a pillow at the mod soul, an annoyed look marring his face. "It's not like that, anyway."

"Maybe it should be," Kon suggested, a lecherous undertone to his voice, as always.

"Give me a break!" Sighing, Ichigo returned his gaze at the window. He didn't care if she left. He didn't want to see her, anyway. That was his story, and he was sticking to it.

* * *

So sometimes stories turn out differently than they start. "Absurd," the orange-haired teen muttered to himself, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. Here he was, standing in the middle of the vizard's hangout, and for what? To chase after a girl he didn't want to see? Yeah, that was it.

"Ya two really gotta work on yer communication." Wide teeth stretched into an even wider grin as mischievous eyes danced behind straight-cut bangs.

"Just tell me where she is," Ichigo sighed. Shinji was possibly one of the most difficult people to talk to, though considering he had to put up with the loud-mouthed Hiyori on a daily basis, he couldn't really blame the blonde.

"Not like I got a track on 'em," the vizard told him. "They come an' go when they want."

"So you have no idea where she'd be." It wasn't a question, or if it was, it was rhetorical. It carried the tone of 'I know you know better than to try and pull that one'. Honestly, Ichigo wouldn't put it past Shinji to stick a tracking device on every last person he met. He almost expected the same of Urahara.

"I might know," the grinning man teased. "Why ya so interested in 'er, anyway?"

"I'm not _interested_," Ichigo assured him, more irritated by the question than he should have been if he really, truly wasn't curious.

"Then why do ya wanna know?"

"Just tell me."

"I asked first."

"No you didn't!"

Shinji's grin only widened. "Ya gotta crush on 'er?" Ichigo didn't respond right away and he pressed the matter. "Ain't doin' ya no good if ya don't say nothin'."

"There's nothing to say!" Annoyed, frustrated, and deep in denial, Ichigo spun on his heel. "Forget this."

"Try th' park!" Shinji shouted after him.

Ichigo almost wished he hadn't heard the blonde yell out his parting suggestion, but now that he had the knowledge, he could hardly ignore it. The park it was.

* * *

"Stupid Shinji," Ichigo muttered, glaring around a darkening merry-go-round. "She's not even here."

"Who isn't?"

The substitute shinigami spun around for the second time that day, this time toward a skeptical female. "You," he answered lamely.

Chidori cocked her head downward, looking at herself, before raising her gaze back to Ichigo. "Looks like I'm here."

"Ah, shut up," he muttered.

The raven-haired girl's eye twitched, but she managed to shrug the instinctive outburst off. "What are you doing here?"

"Shinji said you'd probably be here."

"So?"

"So you asked why I came! Jeez."

"Don't you start yelling at me! I was asking why you were coming here for me!"

"You're yelling, too!"

"You started it!"

Ichigo let out a groan of frustration. "Why I even try to talk to you, I have no idea."

"Is that why you came?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "To insult me some more?"

"No! I don't know why I came, I just did." And that was the truth of it. He wasn't sure what had prompted him to leave the comfort of his room and his bed, or to make the trek to the vizard's hangout, or even to then take Shinji's suggestion and come to the park. He just did. It wasn't because of Kon's silly notion of getting laid or Shinji's absurd idea that he had some sort of _crush_ on her. He just did.

A curious eyebrow raised. "Oh, really?"

"You want me to leave?" he asked, prepared to do just that at the confirmation he was sure was coming.

"Nah," she said, dismissing the argument with a wave of her hand. "I know why you came, anyway."

"Eh?" Ichigo blinked a couple times.

"It's obvious ya like me," she told him, smirking.

"Wha- will everyone stop saying that?!" How annoying. It so was not true. Definitely not. Couldn't be. She was so...so annoying!

"We'll stop saying it as soon as you admit it." It was hard not to just force the confession out of the carrot-top, but she refrained from doing so. Besides, knowing Ichigo, he'd eventually reach the conclusion anyway. Once he admitted it to himself, that was. Hopefully it was soon.

"There's nothing to admit," he assured her, the edge in his voice hardly able to go unnoticed. This feeling that rose up inside him every time she was around-- it wasn't infatuation, was it? It couldn't be _love_ that pumped the blood through his veins especially hard whenever they got into a fight, as small or absurd as it might be, could it? And it most definitely was _not_ attraction that led him out to track her down this night. Right?

"Want me to go first?" Chidori asked, taking a few steps closer. She was sure Ichigo hadn't noticed, but the tone in her voice had toned down from its normal loud, angry frequency. It wasn't teasing and it certainly wasn't condescending. He wouldn't hear that, though-- she could tell he was wrapped up in his own thoughts.

"Cut it out." His eyes burned into hers, trying to decipher exactly what her intentions were. He was so caught up in thinking that he noticed far too late that the vizard was less than a foot away from him.

Nearly level with the tall male, Chidori leaned in a bit closer, her nose just barely grazing Ichigo's. "I'm not joking."

And then Ichigo really didn't have time to try and figure out what she meant because the lips against his spoke very clearly without saying a word. He remained frozen to the spot, eyes wide and trained on Chidori's closed ones. She was kissing him, she was really, _really_ kissing him. What. The. Hell.

Snapping back into action, Ichigo stumbled backwards and very ungracefully fell to the ground. "What...what are you doing?" he demanded, half-afraid of her intentions and half-tempted by them. Of course, that made him all the more wary of his own.

Instead of pressing the moment, Chidori withdrew and frowned. "I..." Had she really misjudged? Did Ichigo really _not _return the feelings? Ah, shit. "I have to go."

"Hey, wait!" But it was too late. Ichigo's outstretched arm met only with the silent night air. What the hell had just happened? Chidori kissed him. The things she was saying before-- she was really serious? For as long as Ichigo had known her-- about as long as he had known the rest-- she had been loud, easily-agitated, and far from romantic.

Yet, something about that callous behavior had attracted him to her. He thought, initially, that it was only as a training partner and a friend, but suddenly Kon and Shinji's assumptions didn't seem so far off. Was he really that out of touch with himself that he didn't even recognize the feelings creeping their way into his heart?

He realized then that, if that _had _been a confession of feelings, that his reaction was far beyond a poor one. Standing from his spot on the ground, Ichigo quickly shunpoed after her trailing reiatsu, hoping to catch her before her own thoughts did any more damage than his actions.

* * *

_"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" _Chidori let out a low growl and punched the side of a building, leaving the stone to crumble. _"What an idiot."_ Had she really thought Ichigo would play with her that much? The schoolboy was far too emotional and unreserved to keep feelings under wraps for so long. He hadn't been hiding, she had just been looking too hard for something that wasn't there. What a fool.

Chidori gritted her teeth and punched the building again. And again. And again and again and again. The tie in her hair, apparently under too much stress from the movement, snapped and let her dark locks fall down her back and frame her face. Her knuckles were scratched and nearly bleeding, but the pain didn't seem to register. She had messed up and she was clueless on how to fix it.

"Chidori!" The voice caught her off guard and she immediately jumped, turning to face a lightly-panting Ichigo.

"Go away," she muttered, as embarrassed as she was angry.

"Shut up."

Just as she was going to repeat herself in a louder, glare-filled manner, she felt Ichigo grab her and pull her tight against his chest. Her mouth opened to protest, but was caught by his own in a deep kiss that nearly spun her head. She wasn't sure why, and quite confused as to how, but something had happened in that short time and it seemed to be working to her benefit.

Never wasting an opportunity, Chidori returned the kiss with a passion she usually reserved only for battles. Her fingers found Ichigo's brightly-colored hair and grasped at the short strands, pulling his head closer. A soft moan escaped her lips as his tongue pressed past them and ran a trail in her mouth. Her own muscle came up to play a quick, silent battle of dominance in which she (almost happily) lost.

Ichigo pressed the girl against the wall she had been so hastily destroying, finding it highly convenient that she had chosen an all-but-abandoned part of town to take out her anger on. His hands found their way to her waist and his hips ground against her, a low groan ushering from his throat. Completely intoxicated by her scent, her touch, her _everything_, he continued, running his hands up her sides and under her shirt.

Chidori found that, in the heat of the moment, clothes were easily lost with little to no explanation of how they had been discarded. One moment she remembered Ichigo kissing her and the next she found the chilled air brushing against her skin. Ichigo's own, much warmer skin pressed against hers everywhere, it seemed. His hand trailed up her thigh, his fingers teased at her nipples, and his tongue ran slow patterns over the base of her neck. It was, in a word, ecstasy.

She couldn't help but go with the momentum and, frankly, didn't mind. They met again for another, passionate kiss as she was lifted and her legs wrapped around the boy's waist. Her back met with the building behind her and her head tilted back against it as Ichigo's mouth lowered to one of her nipples and began sucking at it teasingly. She moaned again, fingers tightening in his hair as she felt the head of his erection brush against her entrance.

Caught up in his own desires, of which had been held back far too long for a teenage boy, Ichigo's thoughts never really considered preparation or warnings. He only knew that Chidori was enjoying this possibly as much as he was, and that he wanted to take it further. Wrapping an arm around the female's waist to guide her, Ichigo pulled her down and thrust up into her. His body shuddered with the heat and the pleasure only intensified at her nails digging deep into his scalp. Sensing that she wasn't opposed to the act, Ichigo threw all caution to the wind. He slammed into her, fast and hard, unexperienced but letting his desire for release guide him.

Chidori nearly screamed at the sudden, rough movements, but muffled her shouts against Ichigo's shoulder. She sunk her teeth into the soft flesh and swore she could hear him moaning from the action. Her legs tightened around his waist and her eyes closed lightly, the pleasure slowly beginning to build up inside her. She pushed down to meet his thrusts, the force sending tremors through her legs. She shook as she felt her climax nearing steadily and soon became as animalistic and desperate for a release as Ichigo was.

Nails scraped down skin and teeth dug into flesh. Every little bit adding onto a release that nearly caused Ichigo's legs to give out from underneath him. He held Chidori tight against his body as he felt her muscles spasm around his own and, just as quickly as it had come, the drive for contact slipped away into the night. He panted heavily and slowly, a bit more carefully than his previous actions, lifted the girl down to the ground. She steadied herself against him and he closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the cracked wall.

"So," she murmured, her face buried contently in the crook of his neck. "Was that the reason you came to find me?"

"Nah," he replied, a lazy, sleepy feeling coming over him, "just a perk."

* * *

That was such a rude answer, but it made me laugh. Anyway, not much to comment on, but I do hope you enjoyed it!


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